


Late Night Calls For Late Night Souls

by yourviolentlackofvirtue



Category: Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Endgame, So so so much angst, looking at what might have happened if dick/artemis became a thing and then wally came back, this was really just an excuse for me to make myself sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 15:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10311362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourviolentlackofvirtue/pseuds/yourviolentlackofvirtue
Summary: “’Mis, it’s like 3am. Are you okay?” He asked, voice low but full of urgency.“Yeah, Dick. I’m alright. I – ” She cut herself off and got so quiet he had to look down to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected.“Artemis? Are you still there?”“I just wanted to hear your voice.” She replied eventually and it felt like a blow to the chest.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was entirely self indulgent and I've got no excuse, 'Lips Of An Angel' by Hinder came up on my Spotify shuffle and this kind of just happened. I'm sorry.

Bleary eyed, and still more than half asleep Dick answered his phone without bothering to look at the caller ID.

_“Hey boy wonder,”_ she breathed down the line, and just like that Dick was wide-awake. 

He sat up slowly, making sure not to jostle the bed too much. As he swung his legs over the side he sent a quick glance back over his shoulder to confirm that Babs was still asleep.

The apartment was quiet as he made his way to the kitchen; the only sounds were the soft electronic whirring from the appliances and something rummaging around in the trash outside. He’d usually assume it was an animal of some sort, but in Gotham you could never really be sure.

“’Mis, it’s like 3am. Are you okay?” He asked, voice low but full of urgency.

_“Yeah, Dick. I’m alright. I – ”_ She cut herself off and got so quiet he had to look down to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected.

“Artemis? Are you still there?”

_“I just wanted to hear your voice.”_ She replied eventually and it felt like a blow to the chest.

Dick leant back against the counter and closed his eyes for a moment. He heard her swallow on the other end of the line and took a deep breath to try and steady himself – he tried to remind himself that she shouldn’t be able to make him feel like this anymore. He craned his neck so that he could see into the bedroom again and the sight of Babs still sound asleep made guilt twist in his stomach.

_“Barbara’s there.”_ She correctly interpreted his silence. _“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have called I’ll – ”_

“No,” his voice was a little too loud, a little too desperate. “Please, don’t hang up.”

_“Okay.”_

Neither of them spoke but the static of the line was heavy with all the things they were trying not to say. Her soft breaths echoed through the phone and like he’d done so many times before he allowed them to calm him.

They were best friends – but after Wally they’d needed each other more than ever. They’d become inseparable. They’d go out on patrol every night, it wasn’t like they could sleep anyway, and Dick would ignore the way she hit the bad guys harder than was necessary. It worked for them until Jade was there one night and mentioned Wally and Dick had to step in because he was genuinely concerned that Artemis was going to kill her sister if he didn’t.

They went to a safe house and she cried for the first time since she’d found out. He’d held her until she couldn’t cry anymore and then they’d fallen asleep with him holding her tight to his chest. 

After that sharing a bed became a regular thing. So did Artemis using his heartbeats to pull herself out of panic attacks, and him letting her breathing lull him back to sleep after the ever-present nightmares. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that what they had was no longer strictly friendly, but it was a couple of years before they stopped feeling guilty and were able to actually call it a relationship.

Together, they were able to start to heal and move on. Then, just as things were beginning to look like they might be okay for the first time in a long time, Wally came back.

Wally made it out of the speedforce and the first thing he wanted to do was kiss his girlfriend and that was when Dick knew it was over. They didn’t speak about it but they didn’t have to, Artemis was never going to choose him over Wally – not after everything. So he tried to move on.

He was seeing Bette for a while but she could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. Then there was Zatanna, but they were both using the other and they knew it so they got out of that before it could cause any real damage to their friendship.

Then there was Barbara. She was caring, and she understood the whole hero gig, but she wasn’t Artemis and Dick hated himself a little bit more every time she told him she loved him.

_“You still there, Dick?”_ Hearing her say his name shouldn’t have been so hard. 

“Yeah ‘Mis,” he sighed, sliding down the side of the counter to sit on the floor. “I’m still here.” 

He ran a hand through his hair as they lapsed into another silence.

_“When did everything get so messed up?”_ He heard the hitch in her voice and then the soft sniffle and wondered how he hadn’t realised she was crying. _“I love him, Dick. Of course I love him, but he died. I had to mourn him and I had to let him go, but now he’s back and I feel so guilty because there’s_ you _.”_

His heart stuttered in his chest and he tried to get some words out but nothing came.

_“Because I love him and I’m so glad that he’s back, but that doesn’t mean that I stopped wanting you. How am I supposed to explain that to him? That I love him, but I love you too? That sometimes I wish he’d never come back because now everything’s so screwed up?”_

Dick was pretty sure he’d stopped breathing.

_“Please say something,”_ she begged. 

“If I do it’ll be something selfish.” He dropped his head onto his knees and closed his eyes so tight it hurt.

_“I don’t care.”_

“I’m still – ” He cut himself off at the sound of sheets rustling and it took a moment for him to realise it was on her end.

He listens to Wally’s groggy ‘babe’ and Artemis telling him to go back to sleep and he feels sick to his stomach. Sick because of the reminder that it’s Wally who gets to be with her; sick because he’s so jealous of his friend who had already suffered more than his fair share; sick because he felt so helpless, because he knew there was nothing he could do about any of it.

The burning in his chest and throat had become unbearable but he refused to cry. 

_“You’re still what, Dick?”_

The way she said his name made him want to be greedy. It made him want to whisper that he was still in love with her, even though Barbara was in the next room and Wally was lying right beside her. If it had been a few moments earlier he probably would have too; but he couldn’t now, he couldn’t do that to Wally no matter what he wanted – Wally didn’t deserve that. Barbara didn’t deserve it either, but he couldn’t find it within himself to pretend that her presence and her place in his life would have made a difference. 

“It was really good to hear your voice ‘Mis.”

Dick hung up the phone but didn’t move from the floor. He inhaled shakily and tried to remind himself that it was the right thing to do. It didn’t matter though, because it did nothing to make him feel better about it.


End file.
